This week has gone by SO fast! I can't believe its already Thursday and I only have two weeks left with these awesome kids! In short, this week has been fun. Well, fun may be a stretch but compared to last week it is so much smoother. I am starting to get my teacher-legs I guess and feeling more empowered as the leader of my classroom. I'm getting much stronger at classroom management which included teaching my students about a little thing Aretha called R-E-S-P-E-C-T.
On Wednesday I was actually able to videotape myself teaching so I can see how I present my material and if I really come across as clear and concise as I'd hoped. I've yet to watch the video since its on a mini-dvd that I can't put into my mac so I'm going to have to find some PC friends. This video should also include my respect lecture so I'm excited to see what my teacher face actually looks like to the kids :)
Otherwise, I'm preparing to send progress reports home and today we had the TAKS (texas state standardized test) retests. This meant I didn't actually get to teach which was a bit of a bummer. I did get the students who were finished with the test to write me a paragraph about their goals and dreams for the future. These are some of the best things I've read since I got here and it is so inspiring to hear about all their goals. I loved reading one student who wrote "I would want to feel achieved when I finish college because I worked hard and got something that pays off by changing my whole life." My kids seem so motivated to go to college and get rewarding careers (three want to be vets!) and its inspiring to know teachers like us can help them do that. I really think it is insane how invested we become in our kids in just 2 weeks. They so quickly become a part of your life and you realize that despite sleeping very little and being stressed to the point of tears you do this for them.
Finally, the weekend is approaching and mine will be filled with more teacher stuff. Saturday I will be taking the TeXes teaching exam which I've yet to prepare for. I'm not too stressed for the most part but I do need to learn something about the history of Texas so I don't bomb the social studies section. Sunday I need to finalize stuff for next week and work out combining some of my lessons that have been pushed back because of testing.
Of course I'm sure there will be some sort of fun involved in those couple days! For now its off to finalize lesson plans!
Becoming invested in kids is a wonderful thing, whether they are yours by birth or by chance. As the saying goes, "A hundred years from now it will not matter what my bank account was, the sort of house I lived in, or the kind of car I drove . . . . but the world maybe different because I was important in the life of a child." -
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